The present invention relates a magnetic tape recording and reproducing apparatus and more particularly, to a miniature cassette tape recorder that may sufficiently be held in an operator's single right hand, and employs a magnetic tape in a self-contained miniature cartridge or cassette, for example, the so-called micro-cassette and arranged to be usable through very simple operations.
Commonly, it has been a general trend to miniaturize various equipment and apparatuses such as cameras, electrical and electronic appliances, and especially in the field of magnetic tape recording and reproduction apparatuses, miniaturization or ultra-miniaturization of the apparatus bodies has been under way, following development of small sized cassettes such as the miniature cassettes.
It is to be noted, however, that reduction of size of the magnetic tape recording and reproduction apparatus to the above described extent is not fully achieved through mere miniaturization of each component part, and that all of such component parts can not always be readily miniaturized from the view point of performance, thus it being required to develop novel constructions in order to cope with such miniaturization, while it is necessary to provide the magnetic tape recording and reproduction apparatus of such small size with functions such as recording, reproduction, fast forwarding, rewinding, etc., generally required for the apparatus of the kind and also with space for mounting the cartridge or cassette in a casing of the apparatus, with various control push-buttons being so arranged as to facilitate operations.
Although various arrangements concerning the miniaturization of the tape recorder have conventionally been proposed, the resultant miniaturized cassette tape recorders are still bulky in size and especially difficult to be handled by a user's single hand.
A miniature cassette tape recorder disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,021,854 patented on May 3, 1977 is characterized in its manner of operation, wherein recording and reproducing circuit means is switched into a reproducing condition when both recording and reproducing button and recording button are moved in the first direction from their first positions to their second positions, and into a recording condition when only the recording button is moved in the second direction from its first position to its third position and then both the recording and reproducing button and the recording button are moved in the first direction with the recording and reproducing button being moved from its first position to its second position and the recording button being moved from its third position to its fourth position. Furthermore, both the recording and reproducing button and recording button are provided at the same right side surface of the tape recorder body, with the both extending normal to the lengthwise direction of the recorder body.
As is clear from the abovementioned description, since the tape recorder of the prior art includes two-direction and four-position operation just only for a recording operation, the operation for the recording is naturally quite complicated to be effected in the user's single hand. Furthermore, together with the operational complexity mentioned above, the parallel dispositions of both buttons in a short side width of the body tends to cause an erroneous operation, when the user wishes to promptly set said tape recorder to the recording condition.
In addition, according to the tape recorder of the prior art, since the rewind and review operating button can not be pushed during the recording operation, the undesirable signal sound recorded previously in the course of the recording operation can not be erased, if not accompanied by a series of the complex actuations of the tape recorder as mentioned above. Furthermore, the miniature cassette tape recorder of the above described type is not commonly provided with mechanical arrangement, which makes it possible to change the reproducing state into the recording state without releasing the reproducing state. Therefore, the undesirable portion of the recorded contents can not be magnetically erased in a simple operational manner.